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Title: Social Rights and Freedoms Author: Rudolf Rocker Date: 1950 Language: en Topics: human rights, rights, liberties, Freedom, anti-authoritarianism, libertarianism Source: Retrieved on 8th June 2022 from http://anarvist.freeshell.org/The_World_Scene_from_the_Libertarian_Point_of_View__by_Free_Society_Group_of_Chicago_.htm#bookmark6 Notes: Published in The World Scene From The Libertarian Point Of View.
It has long been a truism that the social rights and liberties which we
have inherited from former generations and which we now exercise freely,
have lost their original meaning for most people. As a rule one
cherishes only that which one has attained through personal struggle,
forgetting all too readily the historic significance of the achievements
made by others in previous eras, by dint of costly sacrifices. Were this
not the case, we could not account for the great periodic relapses which
occur in human evolution and progress. All the social gains won in the
past, from the most ancient days to the present, would then be drawn, if
shown on a chart, on a constantly ascending line, unbroken by occasional
reactions.
It is only when such dearly won rights have become the prey of an
unbridled reaction that we begin to realize how precious they were to
us, and how poignantly their loss affects us. The present epoch and the
shattering events of the most fearful catastrophe in the history of all
nations, have taught us a lesson in this respect which cannot be easily
misunderstood, and which should spur us all to sober reflection on the
subject.
There was a time when supposed revolutionaries embraced the notion that
drastic repression must necessarily generate counter-pressure of like
intensity among the people, thus accelerating the cause of general
liberation. This delusion, which could spring only from blind dogmatism,
is still very much in vogue and constitutes one of the greatest perils
in the path of all social movements. Such a concept is not only
basically false, with no historical justification; what is worse, it
tends to pave the way for every phase of intellectual and social
reaction. For it is difficult to assume that people who have allowed
themselves to be robbed of any of their bitterly-fought-for rights and
freedoms, will exhibit burning energy in battling to achieve full human
rights.
The irrational idea that political and social liberties possess no value
for us so long as the system under which we live has not been completely
removed, is equivalent to acceptance of Lenin’s sophistical statement
that “Freedom is merely a bourgeois prejudice.” Yet those who would make
this point of view their own must, if they are to be consistent, regard
as purposeless all the rights won through past revolutions and great
popular movements; moreover, they would be obliged to embrace a new
absolutism which, in its inevitable effects, is far worse than the
monarchical absolutism of previous centuries.
None of the rights and liberties that we enjoy today in more or less
democratic countries were ever granted to the peoples by their
governments as a voluntary gift. Not even the most liberal regime
confers rights and freedoms upon a nation on its own initiative; it does
so only when the resistance of the people can no longer be ignored. This
holds good not only for Europe* but all countries on all continents; and
not merely for any given period but for all historical eras.
The revolutions in Switzerland and the Netherlands against the tyranny
of the Austrian and Spanish dynasties respectively; the two English
revolutions against absolute monarchy, the revolt of the American
colonies against oppression by the mother country, the great French
Revolution with its reverberations throughout Europe, the revolutionary
events of 1848–49, the uprising of the Paris Commune in 1871 and the
Cantonal Revolution in Spain in 1873, as well as the Russian Revolution
during the First World War prior to the ascendancy of Bolshevism and its
degeneration into a counter-revolution, the so-called Dictatorship of
the Proletariat; the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936 and the
awakening of the “colonial nations”~—all these events of historic scope
have kept society in a state of internal ferment for centuries, creating
the prerequisites for a new social evolution which, though frequently
interrupted by reactionary relapses, yet serve to direct our lives along
new paths. And these events likewise made the people of many nations
increasingly aware of their elemental rights and zealous for preserving
their own dignity, with the result that the horizon of our personal and
collective rights and liberties has widened to a degree which would have
been unthinkable under royal absolutism.
Without the French Revolution and its powerful reverberations in nearly
all the countries of Europe, the outstanding mass movements of our time,
the wide dissemination of democratic and socialistic ideas, and the
development of the modern labor movement, the aspirations of which have
left an indelible imprint upon history—none of these would have been
possible; for it was the rights and freedoms established through that
epic rising that prepared the soil upon which these new concepts could
grow and flourish.
No one understood this fundamental truth better than Michael Bakunin
when, in the stormy period of 1848–49, he sought to win over the Slavic
nations of the East in favor of the revolution and to persuade them to
join in an alliance with Western democracy, to smash the three remaining
citadels of royalist absolutism in Europe—Russia, Austria, and Prussia.
For he sensed rightly that the continuing existence of these last
strongholds of unlimited despotism constituted the greatest existing
danger to the development of freedom on that continent, and that these
powers would constantly try to work toward a reversion to the days of
the Holy Alliance. This attempt by Bakunin—ending in failure as it did
—appears all the more significant since Marx and Engels themselves could
think of nothing better than to advocate, in the Rheinische Zcilung, the
extermination of all Slavic peoples except the Poles, even going so far
as to deny to those nations generally any inner need for higher cultural
attainment.
Human beings never resort to open resistance solely for the joy of it.
Revolutions break out only when every other possible recourse has been
exhausted, and when the blind inflexibility and mental myopia of the
ruling classes leave no alternative. Revolutions create nothing new in
themselves; they merely clear the path of obstacles and help bring to
fruition already existing germs of new concepts. Every form of freedom
gained through struggle possesses inestimable importance; it becomes a
base for further progress, a stepping stone on the road to general
emancipation. Even the most minor privilege and the meagerest freedom
may have to be bought at the cost of heavy sacrifice; and to discard
such treasure without a fight means playing into the hands of reaction
and perhaps giving a fresh lease of life to the barbarism of times long
past.
Even in democratic countries few individuals remember what such men as
Chaptal, Tocqueville, Gournay, Turgot, Goyot, Buret, and so many others
have taught those who would read or listen about the economic and social
conditions of the old absolutist regime; indeed, these are things of
which the predominant majority of our contemporaries have but the
faintest idea. This ignorance of the era which preceded the French
Revolution is largely responsible for the relative unconcern with which
so many persons today view the overhanging menace of the totalitarian
state and for the ease with which others accept the tenets of the new
absolutism as the only alternative to the prevailing social chaos.
The system of royal absolutism constituted an hierarchy organized unto
the minutest detail, and one to which every concept of personal freedom
and equal rights was completely alien. Every individual was assigned his
niche in society, a decision in which he had no voice at all. Only the
thin stratum of the ruling classes enjoyed extensive privileges, while
the broad masses of people had no rights whatever. The overwhelming
majority of the rural population was bound to the soil which, as serfs,
the living property of the feudal barons, they were never permitted to
leave. Any attempt to escape from that servitude through flight was
punished by savage corporal punishment or death.
This system, which held most of Europe in its grip until the outbreak of
the French Revolution, not only deprived the mass of subjects of every
form of human right, but through an endless and exacting supervision of
every phase of human activity, it stifled all economic and social
progress. A veritable mountain of royal decrees, ordinances, and
regulations, precluded every possibility of improving or accelerating
the process of production through new inventions or other innovations.
Rigid working methods were prescribed for every artisan, and no
deviation from these was tolerated. State commissions fixed not only the
length and width of the cloth, but also the number of threads which had
to be woven into the fabric. The tailor was told exactly how many
stitches he could make in seeing a sleeve into a coat; the shoemaker how
many stitches were required to sew a sole on a boot. Hatmakers in France
were obliged to comply with more than sixty different regulations in the
manufacture of a single hat. Dyers were permitted to employ only
officially specified woods in dyeing fabrics. Every manufacturer had to
abide by regulations of this sort, with the result that in France, as
well as in most other European countries, production methods at the
outbreak of the Revolution differed little from those in effect a
century before.
Spies were planted in every workshop. An army of officials maintained a
close surveillance over factories, looking with eagle eyes for the
slightest breach of the rules. All products which deviated in the
slightest degree from the prescribed norm were confiscated or destroyed
and stiff penalties were imposed on the offenders. In many instances the
worker thus found “guilty” suffered the mutilation of his hands, and in
others a brand was burnt into his face with an iron. In eases of severe
infractions a culprit might be delivered over to the hangman and his
workshop and equipment destroyed.
Very often additional ordinances were enacted merely for the purpose of
extorting money from the guild master. The regulations were so sweeping
and so preposterous that, even with the best of will, complete
compliance was impossible. In such contingencies there was no recourse
for the guild masters but to pay heavy bribes for the rescinding of
especially oppressive ordinances. Extortions of this nature were by no
means exceptional; on the contrary, they became increasingly common as
the rulers avidly seized upon every conceivable device to fill the
coffers of their treasuries, drained by years of profligate spending by
the royal courts.
When Louis Blanc and various other historians of the Great Revolution
relate that, after the abolition of this colossal burden of idiotic
decrees, ordinances, arid regulations, men felt as if they had been
liberated from some mammoth prison, they simply are stating a fact. Only
through complete elimination of those endless obstructions was it made
possible to bring about a radical transformation of economic and social
conditions. This transformation having come, a fertile soil was created
for hundreds of useful inventions which formerly never would have seen
the light of day. And incidentally, that fact provides irrefutable proof
of the fallacy of the Marxian precept that the form of the State is
determined by the mode of production in existence at a given time.
Actually it was not the conditions of production which gave rise to
royal absolutism; rather, it was the system of absolutism which for more
than two centuries forcibly prevented any improvement in the methods of
production and thus paralyzed any tendency toward their modernization.
With the disappearance of the feudal order, however, not only were the
possibilities of improvement in social production altered and enhanced,
but the political and social institutions of various nations changed to
nil extent that one scarcely could have imagined prior to that turning
point. Feudal bondage, which hitherto had shackled men with iron fetters
to the soil, and had imposed on each a mandatory occupation, was
replaced by the right of freedom of movement, choice of domicile ,and
the privilege of choosing the occupation for which one thought himself
best fitted.
The draconic punishments meted out for even slight disregard for
regulations, frequently after confessions forced from the victims
through torture, were supplanted by new concepts of justice which
stemmed from the Revolution and which were more in accord with the
dictates of humanity. Once it had been possible for members of the
privileged classes to have their enemies buried alive in one of Europe’s
countless bastilles by the simple device of preparing a Le.llre de
Cachet. But now the lately won civil rights guaranteed that every
accused person be arraigned before a judge within a specified period of
time. He had to be informed of the charge against him, and he had to be
given the right of counsel.
To us, who perhaps have never met with any different type of
administration of justice, these safeguards may appear commonplace; yet
there was a time when they did not exist, and it was only through
prodigious sacrifices that they came into being.
Along with these human rights there evolved, gradually and by virtue of
incessant struggle, the right to freedom of expression in speech and
writing, freedom of assemblage, and the right to organize, as well as
other gains. One need but recall in this connection the severe
sacrifices that were necessary to bring about abolition of the hated
institution of censorship, or the bitter conflict that the workers in
England and France had to wage for the right to organize, to appreciate
properly these rights. It is true that all such rights and freedoms have
meaning only so long as they remain alive in the consciousness of the
people, and so long as people arc ready to defend them against any
reaction. But this very fact should impel us all the more to uphold them
and to keep a sense of their vital importance fresh in the public mind.
There are individuals who consider themselves extremely radical when
they assert that such rights already have lost their significance, if
for no other reason than that they have been embodied in the
constitutions of various nations; that, at the most, they are trivial
accomplishments which have not brought us a single step nearer to social
emancipation. Whoever holds that opinion is rather hopeless; for thus he
demonstrates that he has learned nothing from the devastating
experiences of the recent past.
The point to be stressed here is not just that these rights are
incorporated in constitutions, but rather that governments were
compelled to guarantee them as a result of pressure from the masses. If
such forms of freedom were in reality so meaningless, reactionaries all
over the world hardly would have gone to the trouble to abolish or
curtail them whenever they had opportunity, as we have seen them do in
so many European countries in the last decade.
But to dismiss all political and social betterment as insignificant is
absurd, if for no other reason than because we would then have to brand
as worthless all attempts on the part of the laboring masses to improve
their conditions within the existing social order. All intelligent
individuals realize that the basic social problem cannot be solved
solely with the usual battles for higher wages, important though these
battles may be as a means toward an immediate essential economic end. If
the above mentioned argument were true, there would be little point in
combating the new feudalism of totalitarian states, since a few rights
more or less would not really matter.
Everything that Socialists of various orientations have affirmed in the
past about the shortcomings of the capitalistic economic order is still
true today, and will remain true so long as it operates to the benefit
of small minorities instead of furthering the welfare of all members of
society. But this docs not alter the fact that social movements which
aim to do away with prevailing social and economic evils, can flourish
only in a climate of intellectual freedom. They must be able to
propagate their ideas and to create organizations or institutions which
help to promote the liberation of humanity. Hence what is needed are
more rights, not fewer; not lesser but greater freedoms, if we want to
get closer to the goal of social emancipation.
Even the least of the freedoms won as a result of constant striving,
sets up a milestone on the road to liberation of mankind, and by the
same token the loss of the slightest social gain represents a setback
for our cause. Certainly one will not achieve liberty for all by
forfeiting without a struggle every personal freedom. Rights and
liberties can be lost on a small scale just as they are often won in
limited measure. For once the first step on this ominous path has been
taken, all other rights and freedoms are exposed to the same danger. If
we make the smallest concession to reaction, we need not be surprised if
in time we lose the priceless heritage which others, through suffering
and sacrifice, have won for us.
If any further proof be needed to corroborate this contention, it amply
provided by the history of the last decade. That should suffice to open
the eyes of anyone not afflicted with incurable intellectual blindness.
The new absolutism is casting its menacing shadow today over all
cultural and social gains achieved by mankind after centuries of
travail. In Soviet Russia and in most Eastern countries dominated by its
military might, the right of a man to live in a locality of his own
choosing, or to enter the occupation which seems most promising to him,
has been cast upon the scrapheap of passing time. The governmental
bureaucracy allots to each individual an arbitrary place for his
productive activity, and this he may abandon only upon express
permission or command of the authorities. A privilege granted to the
lowliest peasant after the abolition of serfdom under the Tsars, is no
longer extended to any worker in the vaunted Red Fatherland of the
Proletariat.
Prior to the Stalinist regime, not a single capitalist state had dared
to set up concentration camps, where under the most rigorous conditions
every worker is assigned his daily production quota, which he must
fulfill under pain of brutal penalties akin to those inflicted upon the
galley slaves of the Caesarian era. But in the Russia of Stalin and in
the lands enchained by his tyranny the establishment of such slave labor
camps has become a commonplace event, and millions of helpless human
beings are its victims.
Simultaneously with this relapse into the darkest ages of feudalism came
the suppression of all social and political rights. All organs for the
communication of ideas, the press, the radio, the theatre, motion
pictures, and public gatherings generally, fell under the control of an
iron censorship, and a ruthless police system impervious to even the
slightest appeal of humanity took command. The trade unions, shorn of
the right to strike and of all other effective rights, were converted
into tools of the all-powerful State and now merely serve the purpose of
giving moral sanction to the enormities of an unbounded economic and
political enslavement.
The brutal suppression of all social movements, from the Mensheviks and
Anarchists to the so-called Trotskyism, within the Soviet confines; the
employment of torture to extort confessions from persons guilty or
innocent of wrong-doing, and the cynical mockery of all concepts of
justice so glaringly evident in the notorious Moscow “purge” trials, the
like of which Tsarist Russia could not duplicate; the. re-introduction
of the infamous practice of taking hostages, which makes even the
families and friends of individuals allegedly imperiling the safety of
the State liable to arrest and punishment; the deportation of the
population of whole villages to remote areas in Siberia—these, plus a
conspicuous array of other punitive measures borrowed from the barbarism
of long vanished epochs, characterize a system which, according to its
own figures, possesses barely 8,000,000 organized adherents in Russia,
and yet undertakes to reduce more than 200,000.000 people to servitude
under its inhuman regime of violence.
And that is not all! Under this new absolutism there exists neither
freedom of thought in science nor any creative autonomy in art, the
representatives of which are likewise at the mercy of the relentless
dictatorship of the Communist Party machine. Not a month passes but that
practitioners of the arts and sciences are arraigned before the bar of
this new State Church for deviation from the prescribed line and
denounced publicly as heretics. The very fact that virtually all such
accused persons —including composers, painters, architects, economists,
historians, anthropologists, construction engineers, and chemists—have
bent the knee before the new powers-that-be, publicly confessed their
“aberrations/’ and promised to mend their ways, is further evidence of
the general degradation of character which becomes inevitable under a
totalitarian regime.
While monarchical absolutism prevailed, it was still possible for
individuals like Cervantes, Goya, Rabelais, Diderot, Voltaire, Milton,
Lessittg, and hundreds of other men of genius to express themselves. In
Stalin’s Russia such latitude is unthinkable. During the reign of Tsar
Nikolai II, Tolstoi could still venture to publish his famous
declaration against the war with Japan in the London Times, and thus
have the whole civilized world as a sounding board. The Russian
Government dared not touch a hair of his head. One might well ask what
would have happened to Tolstoi if he had lived under the reign of
Stalin. To ask this question is to answer it; and the only possible
answer to this hypothetical query will show clearly to what extent
millions of people have lost their basic human rights. Millions of
others will inexorably suffer the same fate unless they take an
indomitable stand in all countries for the defense of rights and
freedoms won at so bitter a cost!
Let us not deceive ourselves. This is the true nature of the new
absolutism which, under the pretext of social emancipation, is today
threatening to smother all freedom, all human dignity and hope for a
brighter future, in order to plunge the world into a modern Dark Age the
duration of which no one can predict. The peril is all the greater
because in every country a fanatical and unprincipled group of disciples
is at the disposal of these latter-day tyrants, unconditionally obedient
to their every command. Consciously so far as the leaders are concerned,
and unconsciously in the case of the intellectually backward masses whom
they exploit for evil purposes, these disciples serve the interests of
the Red Imperialism while paving the way for dictatorship in their own
countries.
At the same time this new despotism tends to strengthen reaction in
every country, with the result that the imperiled nations proceed to do
away with long-established rights and freedoms with the ready excuse
that such action is the only efficacious means of cutting the ground
from under Russian espionage within their borders. The steady
deterioration of civil liberties in the “democratic’* countries is a
clear indication of the danger we face of being contaminated by
totalitarian reaction on our own soil.
The urgent call of the hour is for a decisive collaboration among
persons of good will in all strata of the population, who reject
dictatorship in every form and guise,’ and who are prepared to defend
their rights and freedoms to the last ditch. This is the only way to
re-direct social evolution into new paths and to build a solid and
straight road to universal emancipation. Above all, however, we must
strive to re-awaken among the masses a strong desire for liberty and a
sense of human dignity, and to spur them in their resistance against
every threat to their inherent rights. Such an emphatic repudiation of
reaction in all forms and phases is at the same time the only means of
averting a new World War and of creating an understanding among peoples
everywhere on earth on the basis of mutual aid and federalist
principles. In a word, the power politics of governments can be
frustrated only through resistance by the masses themselves.
Unfortunately there arc still a great many complacent spirits who
ostensibly believe that the sacrifice of social rights and liberties is
essential to the achievement of economic security for everyone. Such a
point of view is the most objectionable of all since it implies
abrogation of all human dignity. Not only is this assumption thoroughly
fallacious, as amply demonstrated by the wretched economic conditions of
the Russian peasants and industrial workers; what is worse, it leads
toward utter disintegration of character.
Let those who are of that mind reflect upon Benjamin Franklin’s maxim:
“He who is prepared to sacrifice his freedom for security deserves
neither freedom nor security.”
For us, however, the old saying still holds good: Socialism will be free
or it will not be at all!